A Comparative Study Of Critical Discourse Analysis

The present paper is a comparative study of Franklin. D. Roosevelt's first and Barack Obama's inaugural addresses in the light of CDA, and they are chosen for their similar social background of delivery.Based on Fairclough's three-dimensional framework, critical discourse analysis of both addresses is conducted in three phases: description of formal features, interpretation of argumentations, and explanation of socially-shaped discourse.Following Halliday'systemic-functional grammar and methodologies of CDA, formal features of both inaugural addresses are described from perspective of transitivity, modality, transformation and classification. It can be easily found that specific linguistic techniques were used to achieve specific purposes, for instance, both presidents adopted nominalization and passivization to make their language more objective, and employed pronoun of first person plural form to impose their wills on the public consciously or unconsciously.Thompson's argumentative analysis is employed as the methodology of interpretation process, in order to explore typical argumentative methods and hidden ideologies involved in both speeches. Explanation takes inaugural addresses as a social practice, concerning how content and formal features of inaugurals are socially shaped, and in return, such elements serve to maintain social order.